Your Fave Is Problematic Politics

In favor of liking things, especially if the thing is Kamala Harris

I.

When I was a young social justice warrior, in the halcyon days of the 2010s, we were very concerned about which things were problematic. The tumblr Your Fave Is Problematic attained a level of fame entirely out of proportion to its meager number of posts, because it epitomized the mindset. Each post listed off a number of bad things a celebrity did, from raping people to making transphobic jokes to wearing tasteless costumes to putting a jewel on the middle of their forehead (“culturally appropriating the bindi”) to noticing that some gay men have lots of sexual partners.

By presenting a list of bad things, Your Fave is Problematic decontextualized people’s actions. Rape is much worse than putting a jewel in the middle of your forehead, even if you believe South Asians have trademarked the concept of forehead jewelry. But if you put them all in a list, they wound up all feeling the same. Assault is bad, putting misogynistic screeds in your rap songs is bad, being an older drag queen who doesn’t know “tranny” is a slur now is bad, wearing a kimono is bad. You lose the ability to distinguish between them.

And what were we supposed to do about all this information, exactly? Mostly just know it. As people would say, “it’s okay to like problematic things, as long as you acknowledge the ways that they’re problematic.”

In retrospect, this was a breathtakingly audacious sentiment. How were we supposed to respond? “Thank you for graciously granting your permission to like things, random stranger!” And it conveniently elided the fact that, usually, people weren’t disputing whether they had a right to like various things; they were disputing whether the purported bad things were actually bad.

What’s also striking is the lack of its opposite. “It’s okay to dislike things, as long as you acknowledge the ways they’re”… I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. “Unproblematic” just means “the absence of problems.” There’s no social-justice word for things being good.

It’s not like bizarre opinion-policing can only happen one way. You can imagine a culture where before saying “I don’t like Nicki Minaj” you have to acknowledge that she’s a woman of color who gives large donations to anti-global-poverty charities. But that’s not the culture we wound up with.

I complained about social justice here, but I think this pathology is everywhere. No amount of literary merit will cause social conservatives to forgive the presence of a boob. Anti-woke people can’t like a genderswapped remake or a movie with a trans actor without three paragraphs of self-flagellation about how Political Correctness Has Gone Mad. There are people I can’t mention the New York Times to without starting the sentence with “I acknowledge that the New York Times outed Scott Alexander and that’s very bad.”

And—as far as I’ve seen—it never goes the other way, except maybe for some conservative Christians who feel obliged to be grateful for how many souls something brought to Christ. Social conservatives don’t say “this book is dumb, but obviously I appreciate the happily married heterosexual couple in it, please don’t cancel me.” Anti-woke people don’t have to acknowledge how blindingly white a fantasy TV show’s cast is before they say it’s badly written. I have never had to pause before discussing a stupid article to say “I recognize that this venue quoted Scott Alexander and didn’t out him, but nevertheless they shouldn’t say that all cows are Nazis and only eating steak for dinner every night will prevent the bovine Holocaust.”

II.

Let’s talk about Kamala Harris, and specifically let’s talk about talking about Kamala Harris.

I’m going to pick on a post by sex educator Emily Nagoski—not because it’s unusual, but because it’s so typical of the get-out-to-vote messaging I see. She writes:

Part of my perspective as a sex educator is that I am in favor of harm reduction—I’m not about abstinence from potentially risky behaviors, I’m about choosing behaviors that reduce the risk of unwanted consequences. Needle exchange and condom use and birth control are all harm reduction strategies. Voting for Kamala reduces the risk of the unwanted consequence of white nationalism ensconced in federal policy in ways it would take generations to undo. Voting for Kamala might even, potentially, open an opportunity to reduce the white nationalism already deeply rooted in the federal government, since, once somebody is in office, we get to protest and let them know what we want from them; change happens that way, even under dire circumstances.

Some of you are considering voting for a third party; I also get that. Voting for a Democrat can feel like choosing an all-inclusive vacation where part of what’s included is a nice beach but also part of the vacation is Squid Game. Nobody wants to choose Squid Game, no matter how nice the beach is.

And. The reality of this moment is that come January either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will become president. Part Squid Game or… 100% Squid Game that aims its guns at anyone who isn’t a white, cisgender, straight, Christian man with biological children and a job (but not a job as a librarian?). Whatever way you feel about VP Harris and/or the Democrats, it is only under Trump that I and everyone who works for the wellbeing of LGBTQIA2+ people could be considered pornographers and sex offenders. Never has it been less true that “there’s no real difference between the two major parties.”

Yay. Doesn’t that just make you so enthusiastic about voting? You can’t see it, but I’m waving a tiny American flag as we speak.

Conversely, Nagoski’s post doesn’t mention anywhere any reasons to vote for Kamala Harris. And this isn’t because they don’t exist?

• Kamala Harris intends to continue the Biden administration’s excellent track record of investments in clean energy—our best hope for keeping climate change under control.

• Kamala Harris is a strong supporter of abortion rights who has promised to sign a bill protecting reproductive freedom.

• Kamala Harris has promised to restore the Child Tax Credit expansion, one of the most successful anti-child-poverty programs in American history.

• Kamala Harris promises to preserve Biden’s legacy of letting Medicare actually fucking negotiate prescription drug prices.

• Kamala Harris understands that building more housing is the primary solution to the housing crisis.

• Kamala Harris has promised to protect voting rights.

• Kamala Harris wants a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

• The Biden-Harris administration probably provided too large of a stimulus after the Covid pandemic, but inflation is definitely better than the post-Covid recession many other countries are facing.

• The Biden-Harris administration passed the CHIPS Act, which caused more semiconductor plants to be built in the United States, which is important because semiconductors make computers work and a bunch of them are made in Taiwan which is not, like, great if we’re worried about tensions with China.

• The Biden-Harris administration is leading an international initiative to end lead poisoning. Let me go on a tangent about lead.

  • Globally, lead poisoning affects one-third of children: that is, the entire world has a rate of lead poisoning seven times greater than Flint, Michigan at its worst.

  • The average lead-poisoned child loses between one and six IQ points and has a 1.5 times higher rate of cardiovascular disease—while also being at higher risk of “kidney disease, anaemia, foetal health problems, behavioural disorders, ADHD, and possibly even mental health problems and dementia.”

  • Most lead poisoning these days comes from its use in paint, cosmetics, turmeric, and cookware, all of which can be eliminated with little cost to producers or consumers. (No one needs extremely bright turmeric.)

  • One of the top anti-lead charities, the Lead Exposure Elimination Project, basically just asks people nicely to stop.

  • In short, anti-lead-poisoning work has the potential to be one of the greatest humanitarian efforts in American history, at remarkably little cost to us or anyone else, unless a xenophobic fuckwit who likes it when foreigners die shows up in the White House and cancels it.

• Nagoski likes harm reduction? How’s this for harm reduction: the Biden-Harris administration made naloxone available over the counter, which played a role in the massive decrease in opioid overdose deaths over Biden’s term in office.

• And, yes, Kamala Harris would be our first female president, our second president of color, and our first Indian president, and we’re allowed to think that’s cool.

But… even in her post encouraging people to vote for Kamala Harris, Nagoski can’t bring herself to say something as anodyne as “it would be nice to have a woman of color as president”—much less sell everyone on the importance of developing clean energy and ending lead poisoning. Sure, maybe she needs to validate some people’s concerns that voting for Democrats is like voting for the Squid Game. But surely there are many other people who would support Kamala Harris if they knew more about her policies. They’re, like, pretty popular policies? That’s why she picked them?

I am not thrilled by all of Kamala Harris’s policies by any means. But I am voting for her because I think her presidency will make America better. I expect her signature legislation to have more things I like than things I dislike! I expect to look back on four years of a Harris presidency and go “that was fine”! I am waving my damn tiny American flag! It waves gloriously in the breeze!

In 1991, Louisianans were faced with a choice between one of the most corrupt politicians in Louisianian history and the literal Grand Wizard of the KKK. This unfortunate situation resulted in many hilarious bumper stickers, such as “Vote For The Lizard, Not The Wizard” and “Vote For The Crook: It’s Important.” But these days, “Vote For The Lizard” feels like the approach people take to every election. “Our guy is awful, but the other guy is worse! Yay!”

Kamala Harris is neither one of the most corrupt politicians in history nor a KKK member. She’s a basically normal politician, with some good policies and some bad policies. And I believe that people, as a whole, should not be talking about a basically normal politician the same way you would talk about a man who once responded to accusations of illegal campaign contributions with “it was illegal for them to give, but not for me to receive.”

It’s Your Fave Is Problematic writ large. Your fave might be little problematic or a lot problematic, but your fave is never Good. All faves have sinned and fallen short of the glory of Unproblematicness. We exist in a state of total fave depravity, and there is no God to save His elect among the faves. And before you like anyone who is problematic, which is to say anyone, you must performatively self-flagellate to show you’ve acknowledged the wrongs they’ve done.

This is an annoying approach to media analysis. It is a batshit approach to getting people to vote for a candidate.

People like voting for candidates they think are good. If they think both candidates are bad, most of them will stay home. “No, but this time the other guy is really really bad” works if it’s 1991 Louisiana and you’re running against the Grand Wizard of the KKK, and not otherwise.

I’m not telling you to lie. But leaving out all positive traits of Kamala Harris, when writing a post about why you should vote for Kamala Harris, isn’t exactly telling the truth. If you aren’t a Calvinist, no one is obliging you to believe in total depravity.

III.

A friend complained to me a while back, “no one is ever straightforwardly happy about anything. They always have to acknowledge that it’s bad somehow.”

Once he said it, I saw it everywhere. Can’t post about a movie without acknowledging how problematic it is. Can’t post about a celebrity without disclaiming everything bad they’ve ever done. Can’t post about spaceships without saying that the money would be better spent helping people in Earth. Can’t post a Make a Wish video without saying that the money would be better spent on insecticide-treated bednets to prevent malaria. Can’t post about insecticide-treated bednets without saying it’s bad to commit fraud.

The root of Your Fave Is Problematic culture is that Internet culture generally rewards people for saying things are bad, and punishes people for saying things are good. Bad news gets more readers than good news. A review tearing a book to shreds gets more hits than a review saying “this is my favorite book and you should read it too.” Woke and anti-woke culture—as ever, dark mirrors of each other—seeks out more and more arcane ways that things are secretly terrible, but never more and more arcane ways that things are secretly great.

You are never going to get much readership from your new Tumblr, Your Fave Is Even Better Than You Thought.

Why? To me, it often feels like praising a person or a movement or a policy or a piece of media, without noting its flaws, is disrespectful to the victims; but it rarely feels like criticizing something without praise is disrespectful to the people that thing helped. My horrible little monkey gossip brain loves other people’s drama, but is uninterested in other people’s happiness. And criticizing things is very easy, while doing things is very hard; if I can criticize people who do things, then I can feel good about being their moral superiors without actually having to do any work. Even in this post, I’m tearing down Emily Nagoski, but am I citing any positive examples of people who do things I like?

I guess I should. Slow Boring consistently provides the Kamala Harris Is Great takes. Our World In Data sends me a daily email that, most of the time, is about how something is much better than I thought it was; highlight of my morning. The late lamented Be The Serpent podcast did cheerfully positive and fannish reviews of media the hosts love; listening to their archive is a great way to expand your to-be-read pile. Feel free to drop your own links in the comments!

Your Fave Is Totally Depraved is a horrible, depressing way to live. It’s an awful way of convincing people to do what you want them to do, because people need something to hope for beyond a slightly lighter shade of gray. And it’s not true—good things exist and are good; the world is, however slowly, getting better.

Fuck “it’s okay to like things, as long as you acknowledge that they’re problematic.” Try “it’s okay to have whatever feelings you want about things, as long as you have a balanced perspective on their good and bad points.”